Mother’s Day 2012 (Sunday, May 13th) may soon be upon us but there's still plenty of time left to get mom the gift of music from Amoeba, whether you order something online from our website shop on Amoeba.com (and have us mail it directly to mom) or if you stop into one of the three Amoeba Music stores. With the endless choices of CDs, DVDs, records, posters, and more, you're bound to find something just right for mom.

Some know San Francisco’s Westerfeld Mansion as the “Russian Embassy,” the site of an infamous brothel run by Czarist Russians in the 1920s. Some know it as a ramshackle boarding house for Fillmore district jazz performers of the 1950s. Most remember it as the magical crash pad of 1960’s counterculture luminaries that inspired Tom Wolfe, Janis Joplin, Ken Kesey, Anton LaVey, Bobby Beausoleil, and Kenneth Anger alike to fly their freak flag from the turrets of this Victorian palace.

For all of us who have wanted to know what mysteries are contained within the walls of this Alamo Square manion, F for Fake Pictures brings you House of Legends, a feature-length documentary that explores the making of a legend by investigating the history and the myths behind San Francisco's Historical Landmark #135. 123 years in the making, the Westerfeld Mansion has a brilliant story to tell through many of its famous, infamous, and colorful inhabitants and visitors over the past 12 generations.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, is fast approaching. The folks at Record Store Day have helped to organize a series of exclusive items just for indie record stores to be released on Black Friday. The list is pretty big, so we wanted to highlight some of the titles and give you the chance to view or print the entire list (PDF) so you can be prepared on Friday November 25. Just a heads up that the stock may differ between the three stores as well.

We will hold exclusive RSD releases behind our front counters. Line will form outside the store no earlier than 8 a.m. on Saturday. Product is limited to stock on hand and available to customers on a first come, first served basis. Limit one per title per customer. Store opens at 10:30 a.m.

We will feature exclusive RSD releases on our sales floor. Product is limited to stock on hand and available to customers on a first come, first served basis. Limit one per title per customer. Stores open at 10:30 a.m.

Last week kicked off the highly recommended free Amoeba's Monday Moviesseries in Hollywood, CA at Space15twenty with a screening of the Hurricane Katrina themed film Trouble the Water -- a wonderfully produced documentary, albeit with an unsettling subject matter. In contrast, tonight's screening of the fun, must-see music documentary Festival Express, which captures a magical slice of time and rock history from almost forty years ago, is much lighter in its content.

The film was shot in the summer of 1970 over a period of five days on a cool custom made train with some very talented passengers on board, including Janis Joplin, The Band, the Grateful Dead, Flying Burrito Brothers, Buddy Guy, and Sha Na Na. The train trekked its way across Canada from Toronto, to Calgary and to Winnipeg, with its crew stopping to perform concerts along the route.

What makes this film so unique and so endearing is just how candid everyone comes across in their intimate portrayals. I love this film and was so moved when I first saw it six months ago, especially by Janis Joplin's role. Her great performances tragically would be some of her very last, since she died within a few months of this trans Canadian tour. I wrote an Amoeblog about Festival Express and Joplin back when I first watched the film.

There is a tragically telling scene near the end of Festival Express, the 2003 rockumentary about the 1970 rock festival tour by train across Canada. In it, Janis Joplin is on stage with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead between music and before the closing set by Joplin of the final date of the exciting railway tour that also included the Flying Burrito Brothers, The Band, Buddy Guy, and Sha Na Na. As much as it was a concert event, it was equally a traveling party, with one railway car ("the bar car" - as in video clip above) specifically set up for drinking and partying -- a place where Joplin apparently spent a fair amount of time.

In the film's final scene, Joplin, whose legendary hard partying ways would lead to her death not too long after this very concert, is seen onstage and seems a bit buzzed but still functional. She proceeds to present the two main organizers of the unique railway traveling rock tour, Ken Walker and Thor Eaton, with a heartfelt, two-part thank you gift. She first presents them with a model train "to remember" the tour, and then, smiling widely, presents them with a case of tequila "to continue" the party. In return they gave Joplin a gift of her favorite poison, a bottle of Southern Comfort, which obviously pleased the singer, who passed it off stage for safekeeping and proceeded to jump into an inspired rendition of "Tell Mama."